VietNamNet Bridge - Dr. Ho Long Phi, director of the HCM City National University’s Center for Water Management and Climate Change, believes that it would be better to deal with flooding by ‘living together with water’ by expanding spaces for floodwaters.

This, however, is contrary to all common principles on how to deal with floods. It also goes against Project 1547 initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) which aims to protect all the low-lying areas in HCM City and a part of Long An province with embankments and tide-preventing sewers.

Sources said that, however, the project is too costly and it is an impossible to arrange $3 billion for the project, MARD has narrowed the project’s scale. 

This means that project 1547 is ‘dead’, while the new 1547 would not focus on protecting low-lying areas.

Meanwhile, Phi believes that his plan on dealing with floods in HCM City by 2025, drawn up with the cooperation of Dutch scientists, will be the optimal solution to the problem, and it is at least one billion dollars less costly than MARD’s project.

Under the plan, the Road Belt No 3 would be used as the boundary to protect the city. Since it can connect transport works, HCM City would be able to save nearly one billion dollars because there would be no need to build new embankments, while transport roads can serve as protection barriers.

The main point of the plan is building space for water in urban areas.

“In principle, water will go to lower-lying areas. Why don’t we think of reserving depression areas to store water?” he explained. “The best way to deal with flooding is living together with it and applying measures to avoid damage.”

According to Phi, these spaces in urban areas could be formed in the future in the western part of the city (Binh Chanh and Hoc Mon districts), the south (Nha Be district) and the east (Thu Duc district).

There, in the areas, the water currents would not be blocked, but people will walk on viaducts.

“Instead of completely dry parks, there would be parks with water with the paths on which people can go,” he explained.

Phi said that his solution would bring many benefits. Once the floods have somewhere to go, the flooding in the city will be eased. The existing sewer system in the city can help drain 70 percent of floods, while the remaining 30 percent would have to be undertaken by water reservoirs, flooded spaces and soft solutions.

The existence of water reservoirs and flooded areas will help ease the average temperature. The areas could also be developed into eco-tourism sites.

NLD